


Chloramphenicol

by XtinaJones91



Series: The Americans - Episode Tags [1]
Category: The Americans (TV 2013)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Marriage, Near Death Experiences, Romance, Spies & Secret Agents, Truth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-12
Updated: 2016-05-12
Packaged: 2018-06-07 21:38:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6825391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XtinaJones91/pseuds/XtinaJones91
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An alternate course of events during episode 4x04. </p>
<p>Elizabeth's near-death experience with Glanders forces some truths to light.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chloramphenicol

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first foray into the world of writing for The Americans. The characters, relationships, and scenarios on the show fascinate me. I hope I've done them some justice here.

Through the haze of her fever three things remain clear: Paige. Henry. Philip. Whatever happens to her within the next twenty-four hours, she hopes that stays the same.

When she jolts awake from her fever dream, a thing that was half-dream and half-memory, Philip is there, beside her in an instant. She wants to smooth the worry from his face, the lines that seem to be permanently carved into his forehead these days. She wants his lips on hers, wants the solid warmth of his body wrapped around her.

But she can't have any of that - her touch is potentially deadly to Philip right now, and isn't that an irony. After years of denying him, years of keeping her distance, when she finally wants his touch, wants to reach out to him, she can't.

Her limbs feel like deadweight, her head thick and foggy as she tries to stand from the bed. Philip hovers closer, eases her back down.

She wants to be angry at him, wants to fight back, but she has no energy. And if this is her last day, on this earth and with Philip, she doesn't want to spend it fighting.

She closes her eyes for a moment and breathes in deeply. Her fever remains an ever-present thing, but she feels slightly more settled. Philip watches her, body tense, eyes full of concern. When she eases her eyes open again and meets his, her shallow breaths catch in her throat. Beneath the worry and the fear, beneath the determination to keep her alive, beneath the guilt burns something else. Something deeper and truer than all the rest. Something she's tired of pushing aside, sick of ignoring.

In her fevered state she nearly blurts it out, but she can't do that to him. It wouldn't be fair. If she gets through this, she'll tell him then. She'll tell him every day if it will ease the weight he carries so heavily on his shoulders.

Instead she asks: "Paige knows we love her, right?"

His reply is immediate, adamant, with no room for doubt.

"Of course she does."

'And you?' she thinks. Do you know I love you?

But she can't get the words out, can't take the risk when they're already so close to losing everything.

Her head grows thick and heavy with fever again, the room beyond Philip a washed out blur. Careful with his touch, Philip eases her gently back into bed and tugs the blanket over her.

Her eyes slip closed even as she fights it, fights to look at him for just another moment more, in case it's the last time. But Philip's hand rubs a soothing pattern up and down her back, the blanket a safe barrier between them. Against her will she slips back into the darkness, the warmth of Philip at her back.

She wonders if his answer would be _'Of course.'_ if she asked him, if he would respond with as much conviction as he had in regards to Paige.

The room fades away from her and as much as she fights to stay present, fights to stay with Philip, she's no match for the fever as she slips back under.

* * *

 

The morning comes and she's alive - at least, she thinks she is, but she's too afraid to open her eyes to find out. After a few deep breaths she takes a chance and cracks open one eye.

Sunlight and the peeling walls of the safe house greet her. She blinks both eyes open, never more relieved to see the dingy inside of this place.

She assesses the situation - her body is still sore but her fever seems to have broken. She's exhausted but alive, and she'll take that to the alternative.

She rolls to her side, slowly on the creaky cot. A small smile makes its way unbidden across her face. Philip is slumped on the floor by the cot, apparently unmoved from his position last night - head tilted down at what's definitely a painful angle he'll be regretting soon, book abandoned next to him on the floor, one arm outstretched as though it reached for her in sleep.

She watches him in the morning light, his brow still furrowed even while asleep. She's felt so helpless lately, standing on the sidelines as her husband descends deeper and deeper into a dark place she fears she can't pull him back from.

She stares for a long time, eyes tracing the slope of his nose, the broadness of his shoulders, the mess of dark curls on his head. She's taken with how much Henry favors him, the resemblance only growing as Henry gets older.

But she sees Paige in Philip as well - maybe not in looks, but in how she questions things and fights to do things another way, a better way.

Not for the first time she worries about the burden they've placed on Paige, the risks they've asked her to take on. If one thing has become clear to her, it's that she needs Philip's support in navigating this murky territory they've entered into.

At that moment Philip's eyes flicker open. She watches as he blinks bleary-eyed into wakefulness, stretches out the crick in his neck. He doesn't notice her staring until he does this and then his eyes widen, fear still lingering.

"Hey," she says, pushing herself into an upright position, trying to prove to him as quickly as possible that she's okay.

He remains on the floor, eyes still blinking at her in disbelief. She runs a hand through her sweat-matted hair, suddenly self-conscious under Philip's penetrating stare.

Whatever he reads in this act shakes him from his stupor and he finally stands, wincing from the sudden movement as all the blood rushes to his head.

He stands in front of her, his chest at her eye level. She looks up at him through her eyelashes. The space between them is only inches but feels cavernous.

Philip traverses it, as he always does, and cups her head in his hand, warm fingers tangling in the hair behind her ear.

"How do you feel?" he asks, voice scratchy with exhaustion.

She finds it difficult to form a response with the way his thumb is circling against her skull, a slow and steady pattern, releasing the last vestiges of tension within her.

"Better," she murmurs.

Philip's face remains serious, but she can see the anxiety leave his body.

"Fever's broken," he responds.

She nods into his hand, his thumb still wreaking havoc on her ability to process coherent thoughts.

He doesn't say anything else right away but she can tell he wants to; he's practically bursting with it. He opens his mouth and she readies herself, tries to think of what she'll say back, if she'll be able to reciprocate when the time comes.

"You had me worried there," he says, a soft smile on his lips.

It's not what she's expecting and she finds she's disappointed. Did she really read him that wrong? Her own husband, the man she's lived with for over twenty years, whose behaviors she knows as well as her own? Or so she thought.

His thumb stills, and he must sense that something's wrong. But before he can say anything else, whether he realizes what her expectation was or not, William interrupts them.

"You're still alive I see."

Philip drops his hand from her face and steps back like he's been caught in the act.

William takes Philip's place, flashes a light in her eyes, presses his fingers against her throat, asks her a series of questions. Over William’s shoulder she sees Philip, watching the whole process anxiously, the tension back in his body.

William steps back, exam complete.

He turns to Philip.

"She's fine. Just a bad reaction to the vaccine."

Philip's shoulders sag with relief. He looks like he could hug the man, but doesn't.

William leaves them and returns to Gabriel who's still sickly pale and coughing, but also still alive.

It looks like they'll all make it through.

She stands and strides past Philip. She needs to get away from him for a moment, the weight of his gaze, all the words unspoken that hang between them.

She heads for the bathroom, expects him to follow her and hover, but when she turns to swing the door shut he's not behind her.

* * *

 

That evening they return home, the last thirty-six hours nothing but another harrowing memory she and Philip will share, two of four people in the world who know how close they came to destruction.

She hugs Henry and Paige a little tighter and longer than normal when they cross the threshold into the foyer. Almost immediately she can sense that Paige is rattled, left on edge by yet another unexpected disappearance of her parents.

Among a flurry of questions and whining from Henry, joking by Philip, and reserved relief from Paige, she manages to stomach dinner while still avoiding direct eye contact with her husband.

The lingering effects of the fever have left her sluggish, so she doesn't notice that Philip has cleared the table until he's suddenly standing behind her, hands resting on her shoulders as he dusts a kiss to the top of her head.

She blinks back to awareness, Henry and Paige's voices drifting to her as they argue over something insignificant. Philip is a warm presence behind her, the closest he's been to her since this morning.

"Bedtime, you two," Philip says, voice deep above her.

She sees Henry open his mouth to protest, but whatever look Philip gives him silences him immediately.

Paige rises and comes toward her, hesitant.

"Goodnight, mom," she says, ducking in for a quick kiss on the cheek before she does the same to Philip and darts upstairs.

Henry makes to stride right by them without a word, but Philip sidesteps to cut him off.

"Not so fast, slugger," Philip reprimands. Henry's mop of hair sticks out through the loose headlock Philip has him in.

"Daaaad," Henry whines, but it's a half-hearted protest.

Philip releases him from the headlock for a ruffle of his hair.

"Lights out in ten minutes."

"Twenty," Henry argues back.

"Fifteen."

"Eighteen!"

"Twelve."

Henry sighs.

"Fine, fifteen."

"Now say goodnight to your mother and go upstairs."

Henry dips down for a quick hug, his scrawny body wriggling from her grasp.

"Night, mom," he says, and then he's gone up the stairs.

It's just her and Philip in the kitchen now and she stands to head for the sink.

Philip sticks his arm out, a hand landing on her wrist and halting her in place.

"I've got it. Go up to bed."

He nods in the direction of the staircase and then gives her a small smile.

Any other night she would argue, would want the time to herself to regroup over mindless work, but her body sags with exhaustion. She craves a warm bath in the worst way.

"Go," Philip urges.

She simply nods and turns away from him. His fingers slip softly from her wrist, tracing a slow path downward as she draws away.

* * *

 

She startles awake to a light knocking on the bathroom door. She must have dozed off, the warmth of the bath the nail in the coffin of her ability to remain awake.

Philip doesn't wait for a response and eases the door open. He has her bath towel in his hands and she's confused until he's standing at the edge of the tub, towel extended out to her and she can feel the warmth radiating off of it.

She quirks an eyebrow at him as she steps out of the tub and into the sinful warmth of the towel. She has to bite her tongue to stop from moaning at how good the warm towel feels against her skin.

Philip just shrugs and releases her shoulders to bend and drain the tub. She stands in the middle of the bathroom, watching him as he rises and peels off his shirt, exposing the rippling muscles of his back. His pants follow suit as the tub empties. He draws the curtain and switches on the shower head, back still to her.

She tugs the towel tighter her around her body, absorbing the remaining heat as much as she can.

Philip rolls his shoulders and then his neck, the tension of the past days, weeks, months (years) never fully gone from his body. She stares, unashamedly, at the strength of her husband. A burn of desire flares within her as her eyes drift downward to Philip’s hips, his underwear slung low.

Philip turns his head and catches her staring, but she doesn’t look away. Instead she meets his gaze.

Tendrils of steam rise from the shower behind Philip.

Droplets of water drip from her hair and onto the bathroom floor, silent beneath the steady beating stream of the shower.

Philip turns away again, wordless. He slips free of his underwear, draws back the shower curtain, and steps behind it.

She stands motionless for a moment longer before shaking herself back to awareness and carrying out her evening routine, her movements mindless and robotic.

She’s in the bedroom when she hears the shower turn off, sitting atop the bedspread rubbing lotion into her legs. Philip emerges a moment later, towel hanging on his hips, stray water droplets streaking down his chest.

He heads for the dresser to retrieve fresh clothes and then disappears back into the bathroom, leaving the door open. She focuses her eyes on her hands as she continues smoothing the lotion into her legs, and then her arms.

In the bathroom she hears Philip brush his teeth and spit. She slips beneath the covers of their bed, clicks off her bedside lamp, and finally rests her head on her pillow. She fights off exhaustion as she waits for Philip in the darkness of their bedroom.

The water runs briefly in the bathroom and then the bedroom is submerged into further darkness. She blinks her eyes to adjust and tracks the shadow of Philip’s body across the room. He pads lightly, quietly, over to his side of the bed and pulls back the blankets, sliding in next to her.

She waits for him to settle in and then she rolls on her side to face him. Philip turns his head toward her and their eyes lock in the darkness. He rotates his body a fraction, just enough to signal to her and she doesn’t hesitate.

She moves across the remaining space between them, sheets rustling underneath her, seemingly loud in the deep quietness of the room. In a fluid motion as if it is as practiced as their moves in the field, Philip slips an arm beneath her as she tucks herself into his chest, her head resting just above his heartbeat.

Philip breathes out, something between an exhale and a sigh, of contentment or relief she’s not quite sure.

He tightens his arm around her, pulls her further into his body. She twines her legs between his, seeking as much contact as possible after the long hours of forced separation, though the last several were self-imposed on her part.

Philip seems to agree with this plan; his other arm wraps around her, hand splayed against her back.

Somehow this feels more intimate than anything else that has passed between them in their more than twenty years together.

It feels real.

And that’s when she knows.

She shifts against Philip’s chest, pushing herself up to look at him directly.

His eyes scan her face, roaming, full of questions, full of words unspoken.

“I love you,” she states.

Simple, unadorned. A fact.

Philip’s whole body stills. His eyes widen a fraction.

She dips her head downward, suddenly shy and afraid of his reaction, afraid of his silence.

Philip’s fingers are soft under her chin as they tilt her face back up.

Despite greatly suspecting, and admittedly hoping for, Philip’s reciprocation, it still catches her off guard, scrapes her raw.

The depth of emotion that shines in Philip’s eyes is overwhelming. She knew it was there, has known for awhile. But it was always tempered, controlled and layered underneath so much else. But now Philip doesn't hold back, doesn't hide it.

He angles his head forward, let's his forehead touch hers as their noses brush and breaths mingle. He eliminates the last centimeters between them, lips soft on her own, kiss gentle, eyes locked with hers.

He pulls back, just long enough to take her in, as if he is seeing her for the first time again. She wishes so badly it had been like this for them since the beginning, since that day they met in Zhukov’s office a lifetime ago, but Philip chases the thought from her head with another kiss, this one deeper.

She shifts her body, positioning herself fully on top of her husband, thighs bracing his waist. His hands slide down her back and settle at her hips.

She nips his bottom lip and he moans, her name a throaty expulsion from his mouth.

“Elizabeth.”

And then: “Nadezhda.”

A whisper in the dark.

It is her turn to freeze, caught off guard.

The first time she's heard him say it, her true name. And it doesn't sound like a curse or a burden or an accusation, the way he says it.

It sounds like home.

“Mikhail,” she whispers back.

Philip finally smiles, a wide and untethered expression of happiness.

“я люблю тебя*,” he says next.

She doesn't admonish him for speaking their native language; it doesn't even cross her mind as she surges forward to capture his lips once more.

For the first time in their marriage they are truly husband and wife, no barriers or covers or lies between them. A woman and a man, in love.

Neither of them dares to think about how long it will last.

**Author's Note:**

> *I love you
> 
> Had things played out differently in "Chloramphenicol," would the rest of the season have unfolded in the same manner? I may write a follow-up to this piece to explore that, but for now this is where Elizabeth and Philip want me to leave them.
> 
> Please leave your thoughts, or drop me a note if you'd like to discuss The Americans.


End file.
